Founded in 2003, LifeSize provides high-definition videoconferencing systems. The company employs more than 350 people around the world, with major offices in England, Germany, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and China.

The company says it was started with four basic principles in mind: Hire exceptional people, ensure they’re put in the right positions to add value, set high expectations to challenge them and give them room to run.

On its website, LifeSize says: “Our culture is based on personal excellence within a team environment. It is diverse, trusting, respectful, challenging and intellectually curious. We understand that our people are the foundation upon which we have built an innovative, results-oriented company that is transforming our industry.”

LifeSize posted revenue of about $90 million last year, with revenue growth of 40 percent to 60 percent projected for 2010. Logitech paid $405 million in cash to buy LifeSize.

In a conference call with Wall Street analysts in June, Jerry Quindlen, president and CEO of Switzerland-based Logitech, said he was pleased by the “accelerating momentum” of LifeSize. In the second quarter of this year, LifeSize accounted for net sales of more than $27 million at Logitech, which is best known for producing computer equipment such as joysticks, trackballs and keyboards.

“We’re encouraged by the growth of our sales and the growth we see in the overall market for video communications,” Quindlen said. “We will expand our LifeSize portfolio of products and services in the coming months,” with some of the biggest sales opportunities in the small to midsize business market.

Digby employs a total of 85 people: 30 in Austin and 55 at its research and development center in Chengdu, China.

In June, Digby said it beefed up its executive ranks with four new hires: Ron Jennings, chief financial officer; Eric Newman, vice president of client services; Dan Lowden, vice president of marketing; and Curtis Hill, vice president of engineering. The company said the executives were added to support “tremendous growth.”

In conjunction with that growth, Digby announced two months ago that it relocated to larger office space—more than 4,300 square feet at 3801 S. Capital of Texas Highway in South Austin.

Digby describes its corporate culture as “hardworking, honest and fun.” Workers enjoy a “camaraderie to do everything possible to help fellow employees and retail customers be successful,” the company says.

Dave Sikora (photo), founder, president and CEO of Digby, is a veteran of the Austin software industry. He is former CEO of Pervasive Software Inc., Question Technologies Inc. and Ventix Systems Inc.

“Digby is 100 percent dedicated to all things mobile for retailers, and our R&D investments are strategic to delivering industry-leading features optimized for today’s best mobile devices,” Sikora says.

“With more than 65 million smartphones expected to ship this year,” he says, “Digby is uniquely positioned to help our retail partners lead the pack in creating unique and rich experiences for their customers, especially as the busy holiday selling season approaches.”

Accruent says it chose Austin for a new office because of “its deep technology assets, established business climate and talented workforce. The company sees Austin as a place to create and innovate.”

“Accruent prides itself on the depth of our product offerings and the talent of our people, and given the strong business environment in Austin, it simply made sense to establish a presence here,” says Mark Friedman (photo), Accruent’s founder and CEO.

“We believe Austin’s assets provide a strong foundation to quickly establish a dynamic presence in the city,” Friedman says, “and we look forward to building our team here and taking advantage of everything Central Texas has to offer.”

Accruent’s new office is in the Braker Pointe office complex at 10801 N. MoPac Expressway in Northwest Austin. The company also has offices in Irvine, Calif., and Chicago.

The privately held company was founded in 1995. Its customers include Staples, Kohl’s, Target, Best Buy, Mutual of Omaha, Lockheed Martin Corp., AstraZeneca, the University of Texas at Austin, Yale University and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Part of the money will be used to ramp up hiring at Smooth-Stone, which bills itself as “Austin’s next great company.” The company employs 17 people now, but spokeswoman Laura Beck says Smooth-Stone plans to double the size of the workforce within the next few months.

Available jobs at Smooth-Stone include software engineer (six positions), IT and systems administrator, and technical writer.

The company says it’s “poised to revolutionize” the computer server business, so it needs an “exceptional team with outstanding skills, creative thinking and a passion to impact the industry.” Smooth-Stone describes its workplace as an “open and collaborative environment.”

Technology being developed by Smooth-Stone—software and mobile-phone-style chips—helps companies efficiently operate energy-hungry computer servers at data centers by boosting the density of computer resources while conserving energy and saving money.

“Our goal is to completely remove power consumption as an issue for the data center. Imagine that change for companies with a large presence on the Internet,” co-founder and CEO Barry Evans (photo) says. “They all deal with the reality that as the mass of information grows daily, so does their power consumption. Every day these companies are thinking about managing their data center sprawl. We want to make sure that space and power are not constraining their potential.”

For now, Smooth-Stone occupies a few offices at the Austin Technology Incubator in Northwest Austin. Beck says the company will be relocating soon to an undisclosed office building on MoPac Expressway.

Last year, Smooth-Stone received $250,000 from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.

The company, which develops calling and texting apps for iPhones and other smartphones, has three positions open now and plans to add more workers in 2010 and 2011.

The available jobs are all technology-oriented: lead QA engineer, network engineer and mobile developer/engineer. These positions are posted on the career section of Callvine’s website.

All three of those engineering jobs will report to Ed Gross, vice president of engineering at Callvine. To submit your resume or to obtain more information about careers at Callvine, contact resumes@callvine.com.

“We offer competitive salary and benefits,” according to descriptions for the three engineering jobs, “and stock options commensurate with experience.”

Mary Firme, director of marketing at Callvine, says the company reviews all submissions to resumes@callvine.com. “We are always pleased to hear from interested people,” she says.

The company, founded earlier this year, already employs 12 people—most of them in Austin. Callvine’s Austin headquarters is at 502 Baylor St.

Callvine’s technology combines group calling and texting into a single free iPhone app. With Callvine, users can text more than 100 people at once using the iPhone’s SMS capabilities, or group-call up to 20 people at the same time with a single touch.

“We’ve designed Callvine to get everyone talking again,” says Callvine CEO Rudy Prince (photo), founder and former CEO of eFax.

“It’s an extension of your address book, where you just pick your contacts, create your groups and push a button to call or text everyone at once. Staying in touch with your groups has never been easier.”

Group-calling as many as 20 people with Callvine is free up to 10 minutes, with a special offer of one hour of free call time through Sept. 7. After that, pay-as-you-go bundles of minutes will be offered for as little as $5.99 through iTunes.

Job seekers may want to keep an eye on Austin-based software company Caringo Inc.

The company has more than half a dozen job openings now, including director of marketing, lead technical support engineer, senior software architect/engineer and senior software quality engineer. But the number of available positions is bound to rise after Caringo’s recent $5 million haul of venture capital.

Caringo CEO Mark Goros (photo) says the company’s headcount “will go up significantly by the end of the year.” A specific figure wasn’t available.

Currently, Caringo employs 36 people, yet an unspecified number of them are located away from the Austin headquarters. The Austin office is at 901 S. MoPac Expressway. To see a LinkedIn profile for Caringo, click here.

On July 26, Caringo announced it snagged $5 million in funding from private sources and two Texas institutional investors. None of the investors was named. In May, the company disclosed it had raised $1.9 million of the $5 million.

“During an economically difficult time for many technology companies, when several vendors have scaled back or even gone under completely, this investment round is an endorsement that Caringo is on the right path to success and future growth,” Goros says. “We look forward to a successful expansion phase thanks to this investment.”

In 2008, Caringo said it received an undisclosed amount of funding from Austin Ventures and Vodafone Ventures Ltd. A year earlier, the company indicated it was trying to raise $5 million. Caringo collected $830,000 in seed funding in 2005.

The company, which develops data storage software, was founded in 2005 by Goros along with Paul Carpentier, chief technology officer, and Jonathan Ring, president. Goros lives in California, Carpentier in Belgium and Ring in Austin.

Caringo has business relationships with companies like Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp. and Xerox Corp. Customers include the San Diego Supercomputer Center, international law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, and the Center of Inherited Disease Research at Johns Hopkins University.

Job seekers may want to keep an eye on Austin-based software company Caringo Inc.

The company has more than half a dozen job openings now, including director of marketing, lead technical support engineer, senior software architect/engineer and senior software quality engineer. But the number of available positions is bound to rise after Caringo’s recent $5 million haul of venture capital.

Caringo CEO Mark Goros says the company’s headcount “will go up significantly by the end of the year.” A specific figure wasn’t available.

Currently, Caringo employs 36 people, yet not all of them are in Austin. The Austin office is at 901 S. MoPac Expressway. To see a LinkedIn profile for Caringo, click here.

On July 26, Caringo announced it snagged $5 million in funding from private sources and two Texas institutional investors. None of the investors was named. In May, the company had disclosed it raised $1.9 million of the $5 million.

In 2008, Caringo said it received an undisclosed amount of funding from Austin Ventures and Vodafone Ventures Ltd. A year earlier, the company indicated it was trying to raise $5 million. Caringo collected $830,000 in seed funding in 2005.

The company, which develops data storage software, was founded in 2005 by Goros along with Paul Carpentier, chief technology officer, and Jonathan Ring, president. Goros lives in California, Carpentier in Belgium and Ring in Austin.

“During an economically difficult time for many technology companies, when several vendors have scaled back or even gone under completely, this investment round is an endorsement that Caringo is on the right path to success and future growth,” Goros says. “We look forward to a successful expansion phase thanks to this investment.”

Caringo has business relationships with companies like Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp. and Xerox Corp. Customers include the San Diego Supercomputer Center, international law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, and the Center of Inherited Disease Research at Johns Hopkins University.

If you want to work for a company that cultivates a fast-paced, close-knit environment where everybody knows your name and where there aren’t any “corporate egos,” then Volusion Inc. might be the right fit for you.

And it looks as though plenty of people will be able to fit into the software company’s workplace culture, at least through the end of 2011.

Volusion, which maintains dual headquarters in Austin and Simi Valley, Calif., is on track to grow its companywide headcount by more than 100 this year and more than 100 next year. Company executives say the bulk of the new hires will be in Austin.

“Austin is a technology mecca, and Volusion is located right in the heart of it. The city encourages collaboration, learning and giving back, and draws people from all over the world,” says Clay Olivier (photo), chief operating officer and chief marketing officer at Volusion. He’s the highest-ranking executive in the company’s Austin office.

“We’re lucky to have some of the sharpest and most passionate individuals working for Volusion,” says Olivier, a former executive at Dell Inc. “Every day, I admire their drive to help business owners succeed and truly make a difference in the lives of others. We are very invested in bringing in additional talent and look forward to growing our team.”

On Aug. 24, Volusion is hosting a “hiring mixer.” For more information, click here.

Every “Volusioneer,” as employees are called, follows the company’s five core values:

Deliver “WOW” experiences.

Innovate and embrace change.

Keep it simple, get it done.

Rock the golden rule.

Have fun and kick butt.

Volusion, founded in 1999, develops and sells e-commerce software. Last year, users of Volusion’s software processed more than $2 billion in online transactions. Among Volusion’s customers are The Walt Disney Co., Motorola Inc. and the Chicago Tribune.

Privately held Volusion racked up revenue of $22.5 million in 2009, compared with $15.7 million the year before. Revenue is expected to hit $33 million this year.

Bouncing back from the depths of the recession, Austin-based Touch International Inc. has shifted into growth mode once again.

In 2008 and 2009, the touch-screen manufacturer cut a total of 30 jobs in Austin. But in the past six months, the company has added 50 jobs here, bringing its Austin workforce to 148. And more good news may be on the horizon.

“Touch International is on the doorstep of a large military contract that could double the size of our Austin facility,” spokesman Jamie Sewell says.

In other words, Touch International could be on course toward increasing its Austin headcount to roughly 300. Sewell points out that figure is “not set in stone.” Details of the potential military deal—including its value—are under wraps for now.

If the military contract does come through, Touch International will be hiring engineers, sales professionals, administrative staffers, manufacturing workers and cleanroom workers, Sewell says. People interested in working for Touch International are asked to send their resumes to job@touchintl.com.

“We are currently training manufacturing employees for a second shift at our Austin facility so that we will have round-the-clock production,” Sewell says.

In September, Touch International will expand into a 12,600-square-foot suite next to its Austin headquarters at 2222 W. Rundberg Lane, boosting its local presence to 52,600 square feet. The extra space will be used for administrative offices and manufacturing cleanrooms, Sewell says.

Michael Woolstrum (photo), founder and CEO of Touch International, says: “Austin plays a critical role in Touch International’s worldwide success, and we are committed to preserving jobs for Austin and the surrounding communities.”

Research firm DisplaySearch says touch-screen shipments rose 29 percent from 2008 to 2009. Growth in the touch-screen industry is being driven largely by portable devices such as mobile phones, media players and navigation units, the firm says.

Jennifer Colegrove, director of display technologies at DisplaySearch, says: “The touch-screen industry is already a multibillion-dollar industry and still has great growth momentum.”

DisplaySearch predicts the touch-screen industry will climb from $4.3 billion in 2009 to nearly $14 billion by 2016.

Despite difficult economic conditions in other market segments, Touch International continues to see growth in its iPhone-type touch screens and its professional-grade products for military, medical, aerospace and retail customers.

To watch a demonstration of one of Touch International’s products, click here.

Buoyed by $29.5 million in fresh venture capital, Kyle-based energy storage and power management systems provider Xtreme Power Inc. plans to double the size of its Central Texas workforce by the end of 2011 and to open an Austin office soon.

Darrell Hayslip (second photo), the company’s chief development officer, says Xtreme Power aims to add a total of 60 to 70 employees in Kyle and Austin before the close of next year. Now, the company employs about 60 to 70 people in Kyle.

Hayslip says the new hires in Central Texas will be divided between the Kyle headquarters and the new Austin office. Xtreme Power also employs about 60 to 70 people at a manufacturing plant in Grove, Okla., near Tulsa.

Currently, Xtreme Power has openings for four engineering jobs in Kyle and one financial analysis position in Austin. For information about careers at Xtreme Power, click here.

Going forward, the company will be filling Central Texas positions in business development, sales and marketing, engineering, legal, accounting, fabrication and assembly, Hayslip says.

Xtreme Power, founded in 2004, is seeking job candidates with flexibility, integrity and a strong work ethic, he says. “When you have an environment with growth, everybody in the company is wearing a lot of hats,” says Hayslip, who joined Xtreme Power in February.

$29.5 million infusion

In late July, Xtreme Power announced it received $29.5 million in venture capital from an array of investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, The Dow Chemical Co., SAIL Venture Partners LLC, Fluor Corp., POSCO ICT Co. Ltd. and SkyLake Incuvest & Co.

“Xtreme Power’s technology significantly enhances the value that renewable energy generators provide to the grid, enabling smoother delivery of power and greater compliance with utility standards,” says Hank Habicht, an Xtreme Power board member and managing partner at SAIL.

Coe, the CEO, has predicted the company’s revenue will exceed $20 million this year and $75 million in 2011.

Last year, Xtreme Power attracted $5 million in venture capital from SAIL Venture Partners. In 2007, Xtreme Power received $2 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.

Part of the $29.5 million in new funding will help Xtreme Power install an energy storage system at a wind project on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Kahuku Wind just received a $117 million loan guarantee for the project from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Economic renewal in Michigan

Another portion of the $29.5 million will be earmarked for a project that Xtreme Power is developing in Michigan.

Hayslip says Xtreme Power is working “very diligently” to transform a former auto manufacturing plant northwest of Detroit into a “renewable energy park.” Xtreme Power has indicated it will create as many as 2,500 manufacturing-oriented jobs there.

Through a $725 million joint venture, Xtreme Power and Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Clairvoyant Energy Solar Panel Manufacturing Inc. are slated to convert Ford Motor Co.’s shuttered Wixom plant for renewable energy ventures. Last year, Ford agreed to sell the plant to Xtreme Power and Clairvoyant, which have committed to retooling the 320-acre site and its 4.7 million square feet of manufacturing space.

Xtreme Power is set to invest about $475 million in the more than 1 million square feet it will occupy at the Wixom site. In 2009, the company obtained $100 million in clean energy tax credits for the project from the Michigan Economic Growth Authority.

Last month, Michigan lawmakers lifted a provision tied to the tax credits that required Xtreme Power to secure a Department of Energy loan guarantee for the Wixom project. Now, the loan guarantee is one of three financing options available to Xtreme Power, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. In a statement to the Detroit publication, Xtreme Power said it is “still actively pursuing the loan guarantee with the DOE.”

To watch a video of Carlos Coe talking about the Michigan project, click here.

Hanger Orthopedic Group Inc. is scheduled to complete the move of its corporate headquarters to Austin from Bethesda, Md., on Aug. 16, with plans to add 30 another employees here before the end of this year.

By late August, about 115 people will be working at Hanger’s headquarters in Austin, says Jennifer Bittner, the company’s director of public relations. Hanger still wants to fill another 30 positions here, which would bring its headquarters workforce to 145 by the close of 2010. Of those 145, about 100 will be new hires, Bittner says.

In March, Hanger set up temporary corporate offices in Austin. The company initially will occupy about 37,000 square feet at the second phase of The Domain in North Austin.

Tom Kirk (photo), president and CEO of Hanger, says: “We look forward to becoming part of the technical and biomedical communities in Texas.”

Bittner says Hanger is seeking to fill headquarters jobs in IT, finance and human resources—ranging from management to administrative positions. In IT, the company is looking for software engineers, systems engineers, quality assurance specialists and project managers, among other positions.

About 30 percent of the company’s corporate employees in Bethesda are relocating to Austin, according to Bittner. All members of the senior management team from Bethesda are moving here, except the former chief information officer and former vice president of HR.

Drew Morton of Austin joined Hanger as vice president of HR in June. Most recently, he held the same post at Austin-based Freescale Semiconductor Inc. In April, Walt Meffert joined Hanger as vice president and CIO. He is relocating from Maryland to Austin.

Under the city’s incentive deal, Hanger agreed to have at least 133 new full-time jobs in Austin by the end of 2010 and a total of 250 new full-time jobs in Austin by the end of 2019. Bittner says it’s too early to speculate when Hanger will reach the 250-employee mark.

According to the incentive agreement, Hanger’s average headquarters salary will be $97,343.

The agreement with the City of Austin includes a promise to retain 19 existing jobs at Austin-based Innovative Neurotronics Inc., Hanger’s development and commercialization subsidiary. Innovative Neurotronics’ best-known product is the WalkAide (bottom photo), a medical device that uses “functional electrical stimulation” to improve the walking ability of sufferers of a lower-leg paralysis known as “foot drop.”

By the end of 2014, Hanger expects to have made a capital investment of more than $7 million in Austin. The company says the move will save it between $2.5 million and $3.5 million in annual expenses.

Hanger has estimated it will incur $15 million to $18 million in costs associated with the headquarters relocation.

Hanger executives say the Austin headquarters will provide ample space for growth, improved operational efficiencies and a better quality of life for corporate employees. Also, Austin’s central U.S. location will aid communication with Hanger’s more than 700 patient care centers across the country as well as other company sites.